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Friday, October 10, 2014

Below are the activities students participated in for Footstep #2: Create a Neighborhood Map

Part 1- Engage with Paul's Journey First students explored where Paul has walked so far since January 2013 by looking at the map room on the National Geographic Out of Eden Walk website. Next they explored 3 different Milestones of their choice from the Out of Eden Walk website.

Part 2- Create a Neighborhood Map Students were invited to think about their own relationship to a place and were given a chance to share more about themselves with other participants by sketching a map of their neighborhood as they see it their their eyes. They then wrote a true story to go with their map. Their story could have involved:

The whole map or one special place that was featured on their map.

A memory of something that happened to them when they were younger in one of the places on their map.

A typical day in their life that featured places marked on their map.

A story about their neighborhood that they had heard from someone else – it could be a story that happened before they were born.

How their neighborhood had changed over time.

Part 3- Interact with Your Walking Partners They browsed through other people's maps and stories.

They chose one person who was not from their class, looked at his/her map carefully and thought about: What catches your eye and makes you want to learn more? What is interesting or thought provoking about the map and its story? Then they wrote a response that involved "snipping" that is, copying a phrase, sentence or section of what the person wrote that caught their attention and pasting it into the comment box. Then they asked a question about what they chose to snip, or said what they found interesting or important about it, making their comment as detailed as possible. Lastly, they returned to their own map and previous posts, responding to anyone who left a message for them last week, trying to carry on the conversation.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Sandra and her Team represent a fabulous local resource! The new MS POP Initiative is an exciting follow up from her visit with the Middle School Tech Team last year and this collaboration opportunity provides a remarkable "focus" for this year's Leadership Council.

Why we are so excited?

Opportunity to collaborate with the Berkman Center and participate in their innovative work and contribute to the center’s ongoing research

Means to stay up-to-date on current ways that young people interact with digital media such as the Internet, cell phones, and video games, harness associated opportunities and address media challenges

Opportunity for the Middle School students to develop as leaders

Shape MS technology policies (rules/norms)

Design and develop two units for the 7th and two units for the 8th grades and facilitate the instruction.

Student-driven teaching is the most effective. Students teach each other what is most important to them (with adult framing of the conversation). A sample of student-driven topics of interest we envision:

Privacy, reputation, and social media;

Safety; Online relationships;

Creativity and strategies to make student’s work more visible;

How to use the Internet as a tool for empowerment - how the Internet can teach students anything they want to know more about;

Sunday, October 5, 2014

6th graders have gotten quite a bit done so far this year in technology class. They have read the "Technology Use Policy" and read and signed the "iPad Rules and Consequences" document. They have completed their iPad 101 training and set up their iPads for the year, creating a folder for all of their google apps and setting up their BB&N Gmail accounts. They have also set up a folder for each subject in google drive to organize their 6th grade work. They have created two private blogs- one for Language Arts, which they have shared with Mrs. Huff, and one for technology, which they have shared with me. Their technology blog will be used for reflecting on their experiences using the scratch programming environment this year. Lastly, they have explored the scratch website, created a scratch account, and read the scratch community guidelines. 6th graders will spend the next several weeks learning more about Scratch programming.

5th graders have had a very busy year so far in technology. They have accomplished so much already! They have read the "Technology Use Policy" and read and signed the "iPad Rules and Consequences" document. They have completed their iPad 101 training and set up their iPads for the year, creating a folder for all of their google apps and setting up their BB&N Gmail accounts. The students have also spent some time in the technology lab setting up google drive folders for all their subjects to organize their 5th grade work. Lastly, they have begun their journey with the "Out of Eden Learn" project.

4th graders are off to a great start! So far they have read and discussed the Technology Use Policy, started using their brand new Google Drive accounts, and logged into their new QwertyTown touch-typing accounts. In Google Drive, the students have created a technology folder that they shared with me, typed up their hopes and dreams for the year in a google doc, collaborated on a shared google slides presentation to let me know more about them, and some of them have started using google sheets to enter data for creating graphs. This is a big week for 4th grade technology- touch-typing homework begins and the Lehner Center computer lab will be open for optional early morning touch-typing practice.

Part 1- Engage with Paul’s Journey
listened to a welcome message from Paul, recorded in Turkey in August, 2014.
watched a video in which Paul explains why he is taking a 7-year walk around the world
read an article, called a dispatch, by Paul on the National Geographic Out of Eden Walk website: Sole Brothers
and responded to a quick survey, answering What caught your attention or interested you about Paul's article? What questions or wonders do you now have?

Part 2- Setting Off
picked an avatar
and wrote a few sentences about themselves: Write a few lines about yourself and describe three things that you enjoy doing. What's the story behind your choice of avatar? What do you find most interesting or exciting about Paul's walk from what you have learned about it so far? Is there anything in particular you would like Paul to look out for or pay attention to as he walks?

Part 3- Interact with your walking partners
read others' posts
left detailed comments and questions for three students who were not in their class
responded to any comments or questions other students left for them